A Crickety  Christmas
by Brit-bound
Summary: Triplets make Christmas truly magical — or they should. But sometimes, even more than the excitement of children is called for. Sometimes, the child in each of us needs to be addressed, as well. Merry Christmas to each of you - and Piers and Kate, as well


_High on the list of family-favorite celebrations, especially for families with small children, is Christmas. Kate has always delighted in the special day. Now, however, she is forced to admit her husband and the father of her sons does not approach the holiday with the same enthusiasm she does. Finding out the reason and figuring out what to do next is both a joyful and a tearful moment in the Prime Minister's family. And it was a story I hated to have end. But then, I can never bear to be away from Piers and Kate and the boys for too long, even under the best of circumstances._

_With thanks, once again, to Shakespeare and Sally Wainwright for creating, re-creating and writing about the tamers and the tamed, I claim borrowing rights and present: _

**A Crick-ety Christmas**

It was a picture-perfect Christmas Eve in the country.

Miniature cottonballs of snow drifted quietly earthward, fluffing anew the gently-blanketed landscape. The moon outlined silvery branches paying arms-lifted homage to a star-studded navy blue velvet sky. The smell of woodsmoke hinted at cozy family gatherings in rooms dedicated to gentle conversation and refined celebration. Red, silver and gold trinkets punctuated evergreen statements of cheer on lampposts and doors. Firefly-inspired points of light, dipping and dodging into needled branches, winked in windows newly clothed for the season. Flickering candles and softly gleaming lanterns accented with holly berry sprays and blood-red bows teased the eye upward toward smaller glassed portals set under thatched roofs and promised peaceful sugarplum dreams within. Gently pealing church bells provided rhythmical accent for the sweetly rushing music of water over century-old rocks in the stream bed.

It was all she had imagined.

And more.

"Come along, Kate, I'm freezing my ba — my buns off, and you're dawdling," the Earl of Charlbury complained.

"Perhaps you should have dressed for the occasion then, my lord," she suggested tartly, the occasion being a midnight church service which had drawn to a close only moments before, midway between the village green and the centuries-old dwelling of the Charlbury earls.

"Whatta you mean, woman? You're the very one who claimed I was decked out like a Christmas tree," the Earl of Charlbury pointed out as he turned to face his wife with a frown.

Swathed in furry garments fit for the season, Kate was a full glare's length behind him, bringing up the rear of the family post-worship parade in snuggly warmth.

Piers, on the other hand, had bowed to neither convention nor common sense in attire and had found comfort in the familiar instead. The only thing that could have rendered the six-foot tall earl (six-foot-four, actually, when booted-up) — who was displaying his hairy knees beneath a pleated mini-skirt and his hairy chest within a V-necked silk and lace blouse, all topped off with a flowing velvet dressing gown and accented with light-catching frippery in his perfect earlobes — any more eye-catching was the ungainly drape of a pair of four-year-old snow-suited legs over his shoulders.

The limbs belonged to Peter, who tended to lag behind his brothers and, so, often earned himself a more elevated view of the world. His fingers — sticky Kate knew, because she was the very one who had quietly bribed him into whine-free compliance with multiple peppermints while the Christmas Eve service was read — were twined in his father's dark, crisp, snow-dampened curls.

"Back in the wagon, boys," the earl ordered Michael and Rupert, who had seized on the conversational halt to their homeward journey to abandon the conveyance their father pulled and mark the path's pristine border with their miniature foot prints.

"I only said it because it's true. At least they're use to your sense of fashion here," she muttered with new-found peevishness.

"I'm their earl. They adjust," he growled. "And so should you, but that might be beyond your scope of wifely compliance."

"I cannot possibly be faulted there," she responded with asperity. "After all, I married you in all your glory, didn't I?"

"And promised me specific unpleasantness in retaliation, if I remember correctly. And just because you've changed your tactics and decided to freeze me to death, piece by piece, in the country doesn't mean you are any less lethal. Now get a move on or we'll abandon you to the pixies and the pointy-hatted elves in the woods. Right, men?" he demanded.

But his sons were busy with interests of their own and had learned to ignore the head-to-heads that were second nature for their parents, anyway.

"Am I right, men?" he growled more forcefully and swung around to assess whatever non-verbal support they might be offering in his grumpy hour of need.

It was impossible to read their faces, however, because their backs were turned to the path as they decorated the pristine snowscape with intersecting streams of palest gold in time-honored little boy fashion.

Peter, newly-alerted to his brothers' artistic skills, was drumming his Wellies against his father's chest and demanding to be allowed to add his own distinctive accents.

"Down, Daddy. Let me down. I gots to go, too."

His brothers turned toward him with delight and anointed each other's snowsuits in the process.

"Put your equipment up, boys, and get your bad little bottoms back in the wagon. It's not too late for Santa to change his mind," the Earl threatened.

Three pair of alarmed eyes swung toward Kate. The concept of a bearded gent in red and white keeping an eye on their behavior and rewarding it accordingly was one too new to their limited Christmas experience to give them unshakable confidence in his benevolence.

"Your daddy should know all about Santa's plans for bad little boys," she huffed and then could have bitten her tongue. "But I suspect Santa might be willing to give you each a second chance. Now let's get home and find your jammies. Because it's for certain he won't be stopping at our house if you're not sound asleep soon."

The earl lowered Peter into the red wagon first and helped tuck his brothers in around him while Kate fielded fresh questions about Santa's intentions.

"No, Rupert, love, I'm truly sorry but I'm quite certain he won't be bringing you an Army tank. After all, he knows we have no place to keep it. Santa can be very practical, you see.

"Yes, Michael, pet. Santa's very clear that only little boys live at our house. There'll be no Barbies, I promise.

Peter, my precious, I've told you before, Santa adores mince pie and milk. He'll be pleased as can be. He won't mind at all that Daddy finished the bourbon and the rum balls last night."

They set off once again, with the earl still muttering under his breath about the cold, the boys poking each other to claim wagon space and Kate wondering why she had gone to such lengths to convince her husband Hazlington was the perfect place to celebrate the holidays.

He had resisted her efforts for days and, having agreed only when his sons entered the equation (and even then, most ungraciously), had been steadfastly ignoring her attempts to get him in the holiday spirit ever since they left Downing Street three days ago.

The scene itself was perfect, but the male lead was stubbornly writing his own script again.

She sighed and pondered whether a private visit from a frisky dark-eyed elf with carnal intentions would lighten the atmosphere at all. Because she was perfectly willing to assume the role if she could manage to clear the stage of the miniature supporting actors first.

If that ploy failed, however, she feared the holiday might be consigned to her husband's dismal memories of Christmases-past.

And banishing those memories was the whole reason they were here.

"Can we sing, Mummy? Will that make Santa happy?" Rupert demanded.

"I think it very well might," she smiled and willed herself to find the Christmas spirit afresh. "Here we go now, 'Jingle –'"

But her thin and slightly off-key warble was suddenly overshadowed by a baritone perfectly on pitch.

"Silent night, holy night," her tarted-up Christmas-tree of an Earl sang with all the sweetness of an angelic choir, so that she was forced to stop in her tracks and stare through tear-misted eyes at his broad-shouldered back as he pulled his precious cargo homeward in a picture-perfect setting.

It was precisely as she had envisioned things.

Or close enough, anyway, she thought with a grin as he raised a green-velvet arm heaven-ward to direct his family choir.

"This is the perfect room for a huge Christmas tree," Kate had told Becky Tanner as they stood in the paneled study at Hazlington several weeks before. They had the room to themselves since the Crick men were exploring the countryside in the glorious autumn weather.

"Right you are, Katherine. It's needed one for a long time. I remember me mum talking about Christmas at Hazlington when she was a girl. They did a fine, proper job of it then," Becky had added.

"But you must have memories of your own," suggested Kate. "How did they celebrate when the Earl was growing up?" Becky was her authority on all-things-Piers where his youthful past was concerned, since she was the last in a long matriarchal line who had made it their business to take care of Charlbury family business at the estate.

"Oh, they didn't. Not much, leastways. The old Earl, Grandpa, tried to keep the traditions going, but 'She' was always too busy galavanting to make any plans."

Kate had recognized the "She," which was uttered in contemptuous tones that clearly capitalized it in place of the name Becky would not condescend even to utter.

"And then, of course, She made her grand exit on Christmas Eve that year. He had just turned 6, bless his sweet little heart. It almost broke mine, I tell you. I saw it all, yes, I did. Saw her run down to that car with him followin' behind her and beggin' her to stay. Saw her blow him a kiss when she got in – blow him a kiss, mind you – not even a proper hug when you know you're abandoning your little boy forever. And she never even looked back. If she had, she surely couldn't have left him. No one with a heart would. So maybe she could have managed it, after all, the cold bi … witch. Excuse me." Becky had finished with a pink-cheeked apology.

"So it happened at Christmas. He never told me that," Kate had mused.

"Well, he wouldn't, would he? Doesn't like to talk about her. Anyway, after that, his grandpa and his dad – well, nobody had the heart to keep Christmas ever again at Hazlington. Me mum and I tried. But his grandpa got sick and and his dad got drunk and neither thing got better through the years. Me mum made sure the little one always had something in his stocking, but it was always just little remembrances so he wouldn't think Santa forgot him completely. It was never the train, of course, and when he got older —"

"Never the train. What do you mean?"

"Why, bless his sweet heart, that's what he asked ole Santa for that Christmas. A shiny train with a black engine and a red Guards' van and a whistle that really tooted, every time the cars passed the little station house. He loved that train. We saw it in the window at Goward's in the village when I took him shopping with me one day. And after that, any time you couldn't find him, you'd know he'd slipped off on his own to go watch that train through the glass.

" I helped him write his Santa letter," Becky had continued, "and that was all he asked for. She knew all about it, of course. Me mum and I made sure of that. We told the Earl, too, but I guess nobody else was thinking about trains that Christmas. She was thinking about leaving and he was thinking about the bottom of a bottle. Where we made our mistake was not bringing Grandpa into the plans. He could have seen to it that year, if he'd known how things was going to turn out. After that, though, he started goin' down hill hisself and by the next Christmas, there wasn't nobody to make it right. And, to be fair, the little one had stopped talkin' about the train by then, anyway. He didn't even write a letter to Santa that year.

"Me mum always said she would have got it for him herself if she could have, but it cost a right pretty penny and she just didn't have enough. She even went to Goward's the day after Christmas that year, thinkin' she might strike a deal with old Mr. Goward to pay over time if he'd just let her bring it back to our little boy – even if it was late. But it was gone by then. Some other lad found it under his tree, would be my guess." And Becky had sighed. "And that was really the end of Christmas at Hazlington."

When she searched her memory of their holidays together, Kate realized the Earl had abdicated to her in virtually every instance. He had supplied the perfect gift for her on each of their five Christmases, but he had been somehow removed from the festivities she treasured. Only when it came to choosing his sons' Santa stash did he voice any opinion, and that only as they outgrew toddler-hood and began to express an interest of their own in the commercial aspects of the season. This year, as he had watched their eyes grow bright with excitement, he had clearly roused himself for their sakes and joined her in trying to establish their own family holiday traditions.

But Christmas at Hazlington — the tradition she was determined to create after hearing Becky's story — had challenged even their quite excellent battle talents and raised them to new heights.

How she had carried the day was still something of a mystery to her. She had hinted and suggested and tempted and cajoled and begged and threatened and cried and shouted and he had remained adamant that their Christmases would be celebrated on Downing Street.

Until, finally, late one night when he lay bare-chested and propped on a pile of pillows with his arm bent behind his head in classic post-climactic satisfaction, she had raised herself up on one elbow and peered into his beautiful face while her fingers trailed down his chest and circled his belly button.

And she had played her trump card.

"The boys deserve Christmas at their real home," she had whispered. "And we both know Downing Street is just borrowed."

And so, here they were: The Earl and his family trudging home through a perfect snow fall from a perfect village Christmas Eve service to a perfect study featuring a perfect sparkling tree surrounded by piles of perfect gift-wrapped boxes.

It was her healing dream come true.

Almost.

For her, it was so much easier to forget they weren't just like any other family when they were at Hazlington. No one kowtowed here. Piers was the Earl, but he was also clearly just "the Charlbury lad" for the townspeople who had known and loved him all his life. And she was just his wife and the mother of his adorable triplets.

Matt and Tom and the carefully trained experts who helped them guard her family's safety were always both less obvious in their efforts and more approachable in their demeanor here, as though the countryside colored in rosy tints their relationship to the family they protected, as well.

Becky and her teen-aged daughter fitted the family's domestic needs neatly into their busy schedules. And when Becky's 80-year-old mum could be persuaded to stir from her own tidy cottage and come along to offer expert advice on kitchen matters, she provided the Prime Minister with hands-on learning experiences in the mysteries of rice pudding and perfectly browned chips.

The five of them took long walks through the woods and the boys had turns in the saddle with Piers. They picnicked by the little river in the summer, collected wildflowers in the spring and dried leaves in the fall and built snowmen in the winter in perfectly ordinary fashion. It was the life she longed for her sons to claim in their memories.

But she realized that Hazlington, for all its wealth of potential positive experience, was poor in family-life heritage for its Earl. For his sake — and his sons' — she would do her best to build up those coffers to overflowing. Christmas, then, was a major part of her memory-centered wealth-acquisition plan.

The effort was well under way.

She snapped a picture of the men in her life. They lay on the study floor, three little boys in bright red pajamas decorated with reindeer faces and three sets of felt reindeer horns nestled in their curls. Their father was sprawled out with them, his long legs encased in soft denim and his maroon T-shirt making a nice Christmas-y contrast to his green, green eyes.

Their newly-favorite Christmas story book was open on the floor in front of him so the boys could take turns turning the pages as he supported himself on bent arms and occasionally reached out to tousle a head or stroke a cheek or rub a small back. Piers could never resist making physical contact with those he loved, and Kate had come to understand it was his way of holding them firmly in his life.

His legs were spread a bit and his knees bent so his bare feet came together to create a perfect triangle.

Kate laid her camera aside and lowered herself next to them all, scrunching against her husband's side and absently rubbing her hand over the seat of the jeans he filled out so nicely. She resisted the impulse to slide her fingers into the waist band, for the boys would be quite certain to notice that. And, after all, she was a grown woman with some degree of self-control. Although how much longer it might be in effect was anyone's guess, she thought, as she felt Piers' nether regions tighten and then loosen repeatedly in response to her ministrations.

Would it be entirely too scandalous for the village, she wondered, if the Earl and his lady were spied later that evening making passionate love at the foot of the twinkling Christmas tree?

Reality intruded. For if there was to be a romantic celebration of any duration any where at Hazlington, several other items of business would have to be taken care of first in those post-midnight hours.

As Piers' beautiful voice read on, she saw with satisfaction that three sleepy heads were creating make-shift pillows of his arms and shoulders. He had the good sense to utter the book's final "Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas" salvo in a stage whisper, and between them they managed to scoop up their sons and maneuver them up the stairs and into bed at last — the one big slumber spot they would all have eventually migrated to on their own anyway, even if they had not been allowed to start out there.

Piers checked the night light while she adjusted covers and kissed small cheeks and then they stood for a moment in the doorway, his arms enfolding her and his lips pressed against the top of her head while they watched their sleeping children in a perfect family moment.

"I'm prepared to shag you silly right now, woman, so shut the door and come with me or we'll give them nightmares their therapists won't believe in another few years," he growled in her ear in an entirely familial manner. At least where Piers was concerned.

It was the first real initiative he had shown since their Hazlington arrival, and she took it as a sign of excellent progress in her plan that he not only conceived the idea but carried it out in exemplary fashion – and precisely where her fantasy had been centered earlier.

"Great minds …," she mused happily to herself as the clock chimed 2 a.m. and Piers, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a determined "peeper" might be able to spy them through the study window and between the branches of the Christmas tree, returned from the kitchen in all his glory – which was considerable - with steaming mugs of hot chocolate and a plate of shortbread for them to share.

He sat down spraddle-legged on the floor, leaning against the overstuffed couch, and she dragged her Christmas-themed knitted throw with her and settled her bare bottom between his thighs, leaning against his chest and sipping the sweet liquid.

"We still have to play Santa," she mused and wondered where they would find the energy. All she wanted was a cozy bed where the could turn toward him, settle her arm over his chest and trap his leg with her own bent one.

"Good thing we're not counting on the real one. He forgot about Hazlington a long time ago," the Earl responded.

"Santa never forgets, my love. He just sometimes gets delayed. Lots of boys and girls to take care of, you know," she whispered and prayed there was no tell-tale quiver of pain for him in her voice.

They watched the twinkling lights and drained their mugs in silence colored by the varying shades of their own memories. When the half hour struck, Piers sighed and patted her bottom, which she had obligingly tilted sideways at some point during their quiet interlude.

"Unless you're actually hoping for switches in your stocking, you'd better rouse yourself and help me out here," the Earl suggested. "And I think some kind of clothing may be in order, although my wish list has my woman completely bare, I must admit. But once I open the cellar door and start bringing up the goodies, there'll be a right fierce chill, I imagine."

Outfitted for the task, at last, the Earl and his lady settled into moving the Santa bounty from hiding places throughout the cellar into a careful Christmas tableaux that Kate fussed over endlessly, until finally Piers pulled the plug on the tree lights, scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder and headed for the stairs, despite her continued protest that Rupert's racing car was edging over into Peter's gift space and might create havoc come Christmas morning.

"It will be a mad house anyway and they'll be all over each other's stuff no matter how carefully you arrange it, so we'd better get some sleep and get prepared," he responded as he cleared the final step, walked into his childhood bedroom and dumped his wife in the center of his boyhood bed. Not in his wildest adolescent dreams, he recalled with an inward grin, had he ever imagined a Kate in his bed.

Maybe there was a Santa, after all, he thought as he drifted off to sleep, firmly captured beneath her petite sprawl.

She recalled hearing the clock strike 4. By some miracle, she had still been reasonably alert at that point. And now she was hearing it again — this time with 6 chimes — and the sound was punctuated by six little feet pounding down the landing toward their bedroom.

"Piers, Piers, wake up, love. It's Christmas," she whispered urgently just before their door flew open and the future hopes of the Charlbury family scrambled onto their bed. Her boys were an undeniable distraction, but even they did not keep her from seeing the look on her lover's face — a fleeting despair that he quickly quelled — as he realized the day it was.

How had she missed it before, she wondered. And, more important, how long would it take her to help him banish it?

At least, she comforted herself, she was making a start.

"Get up, Daddy. It's here," Rupert urged as he tugged at his father's arm.

"It's time for presents, Daddy," Michael explained with a mile-wide grin, secure in the belief that all his wishes were about to come true.

"Did he 'member us, Daddy? Santa didn't forget, did he?" Peter demanded, always the one needing reassurance.

She was grateful for the curtain of her hair that kept her from meeting Piers' eyes directly. To his credit, there was nothing but confidence in his response to Peter.

"Santa will never forget you and your brothers, Peter. I promise you that."

"It's still very early, boys," she announced in best mum fashion. "Let me go down and make sure Santa's had time to finish. And everybody visit the potty while I'm doing that," she added, to a round of groaned protests.

She slid off the bed and found her slippers, shepherding her boys toward the bathroom in an unwilling line and signaling to their father to make sure they were careful in their work there before slipping out of the room and heading downstairs.

All was exactly as she had last seen it. She turned the tree lights back on, double-checked the camera she had left lying on the couch and twitched Rupert's race car more firmly back into his space.

She could hear her boys massing at the head of the stairs and knew she couldn't hold them back another minute.

"I think you should all come and see this right now," she called to them gaily. "Something amazing happened here last night. There must be some very good boys in this house."

She glanced up the stairs in time to see Piers make a valiant effort to lead the pack, but his sons would not be denied and they tumbled down the stairs and across to the study ahead of him in record time. They paused just inside the door, however, overcome at the bounty spread beneath the tree.

And they turned to her, as one, just as their father caught up to them and came to stand behind her.

"Oh, Mummy, look, look. It's 'mazing." Michael breathed in awe.

"Santa Claus didn't forget," Peter announced with relief.

"But who is that one for?" Rupert demanded. And he pointed toward the centerpiece of the whole Christmas extravaganza — the gift that suddenly came to life and began to chug around a gleaming track, tooting a cheery holiday hello as it passed the miniature train station.

Kate cradled the remote control in her fingers and turned toward her husband, who was staring into the room while tears — too many to be contained — traced a stately path down his face.

"That one is for Santa's very best boy," she said softly. "The very best boy of all."


End file.
